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"Before vampires became sympathetic characters with their own alternate worlds, complete with vampire coffee shops and vampire politics, they used to be bad guys, scary not sexy, and they preferred wreaking havoc in horror novels rather than exuding tortured sensitivity in YA coming-of-age fiction. Fortunately, we don't need to go all the way back to Dracula and Boris Karloff to remember those halcyon days: we have Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, from 1975. Oddly, it's not the vampires that make 'Salem's Lot great popular fiction. Mr. Barlow, our lead vampire, is no Dracula. He doesn't even appear until the story is nearly half over, and he is perhaps the most one-dimensional figure in the book (but that single dimension is enough: unadulterated evil). The real main character isn't a person at all, human or vampire: it's the seemingly idyllic New England town of Jerusalem's Lot. King once said that in 'Salem's Lot, he set out to create ""a fictional town with enough prosaic reality about it to offset the comic-book menace of a bunch of vampires."" He did just that by drawing on our universal fear of outsiders, and nowhere is that fear more recognizable than in our traditional image of the New England small town, where insularity itself becomes a defense against incursion by strangers. The stereotypical Yankee, befuddling outsiders with a series of cryptic yups and nopes, may be a comic character from folklore, but he is also a soldier defending his Maginot Line against potential blitzkrieg. And behind the crotchety Yankee's seeming impregnability, there is the constant fear that one day a stranger will come to town who won't take nope for an answer. That juxtaposition of prosaic reality against outlandish terror has always been central to King's technique for scaring his readers. In 'Salem's Lot, he does it by looking beneath the surface of idyllic New England. We see the pastoral beauty, the close-knit community, and the unpretentious lifestyle, yet from the beginning, we also see the harbinger of something else, something other. The novel begins with a stranger, not Barlow but a writer, Ben Mears, returning to the Lot, where he'd lived briefly as a boy. Mears has come home again not to reclaim his innocence but to expunge his demons—the memory of the body of a man dead for decades, still hanging in the closet of the Marsten House. Mears believes he hallucinated this horrible scene, but he wants to explore why it happened, why this house prompted him to imagine evil. What Mears finds when he returns to the Lot is that the Marsten House is now occupied by another stranger, our Mr. Barlow. As the known gives way to the unknown, King shows how the small-town insistence on maintaining the illusion of tranquility makes easy pickings for a vampire intent on fomenting a little evil. If 'Salem's Lot were just another old-fashioned vampire novel, it would portray a straightforward struggle between good (people) and bad (vampires). It would not portray the arrival of vampires in the Lot as a kind of supernatural manifestation of the town's distorted sense of itself. King feels both affection for and anger toward his small town. A part of him wants to see 'Salem's Lot get its comeuppance, and this part gives the novel a degree of frisson that most vampire stories lack. And yet, in the end, the vampires don't win, at least not exactly. Yes, Ben Mears pounds a stake in Barlow's heart, but that isn't enough. The evil continues to thrive. The town needs its own stake. Writers of every kind—from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Grace Metalious to John Updike to Carolyn Chute—have wrestled with their mixed feelings about the small towns of New England. But it took Stephen King to burn one down." 內容簡介
Stephen King's second novel, the classic vampire bestseller 'SALEM'S LOT, tells the story of evil in small-town America. For the first time in a major trade edition, this terrifying novel is accompanied by previously unpublished material from King's archive, two short stories, and eerie photographs that bring King's fictional darkness and evil to vivid life.
When Stephen King's classic thriller 'SALEM'S LOT hit the stands in 1975, it thrilled and terrified millions of readers with tales of demonic evil in small-town America. Now, thirty years later and still scaring readers witless, 'SALEM'S LOT reemerges in a brilliant new edition, complete with photographs, fifty pages of deleted and alternate scenes, and two short stories related to the events of the novel.
While the original edition of 'SALEM'S LOT will forever be a premier horror classic, 'SALEM'S LOT: ILLUSTRATED EDITION, with the inclusion of material from King's archive, is destined to become a classic in its own right and a must-have for all Stephen King fans. In this edition, the hair-raising story of Jerusalem's Lot, a small town in Maine whose inhabitants succumb to the evil allure of a new resident, is told as the author envisioned it, complete with fifty pages of alternate and deleted scenes. With a new introduction by the author, two short stories related to the events and residents of Jerusalem's Lot, the lavishly creepy photographs of Jerry Uelsmann, and a stunning new page design, this edition brings the story to life in words and pictures as never before.
No library will be complete without this ideal collector's item for any King aficionado, the definitive illustrated edition of the great 'SALEM'S LOT. 作者簡介
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller as well as the Best Hardcover Book Award from the International Thriller Writers Association. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
斯蒂芬·金(Stephen King,1947年9月21日-),是一位作品多産,屢獲奬項的美國暢銷書作傢,編寫過劇本、專欄評論,曾擔任電影導演、製片人以及演員。斯蒂芬·金作品銷售超過3億5000萬冊,以恐怖小說著稱,活脫脫概括瞭此一類彆的整個發展沿革。他的作品還包括科幻小說、奇幻小說、短篇小說、非小說、影視劇本及舞颱劇劇本。大多數的作品都曾被改編到其它媒體,像是電影、電視係列劇和漫畫書上。他在2003年獲得美國文學傑齣貢獻奬章。 精彩書評
"Spine-tingling fiction at its best." --Grand Rapids Press
"A master storyteller." --The Los Angeles Times
"An unabashed chiller." --Austin American Statesman
“[The] most wonderfully gruesome man on the planet.” —USA Today
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“A super exorcism...tremendous.” —Kirkus Reviews
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“A novel of chilling, unspeakable evil.” —Chattanooga Times
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“[King is] . . . the guy who probably knows more about scary goings-on in confined, isolated places than anybody since Edgar Allan Poe.” —Entertainment Weekly
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“Stephen King has built a literary genre of putting ordinary people in the most terrifying situations. . . . he’s the author who can always make the improbable so scary you'll feel compelled to check the locks on the front door.” —The Boston Globe
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“Peerless imagination.” —The Observer (London)
影蹤:一窺未知的迷霧 這座城市,矗立在被遺忘的角落,錶麵上平靜如常,卻在夜色降臨後,如同被一層看不見的薄紗籠罩。這裏的故事,不是關於吸血鬼的古典傳說,也不是僵屍的血腥狂歡,而是潛藏在人心深處的恐懼,是環境對個體無聲的侵蝕。 《影蹤》 帶領讀者深入探訪一座名為“埃文斯港”的沿海小鎮。這個名字聽起來寜靜祥和,但鎮上居民的生活早已被一種難以言喻的陰影所籠罩。故事的主人公,伊萊亞斯·文森特,一位因職業變動而遷居至此的建築師,最初隻是被這裏古樸的維多利亞式建築和略顯蕭瑟的海景所吸引。他滿心期待著新的開始,卻很快發現,埃文斯港的每一塊磚石、每一條街道,都似乎在低語著一些不祥的秘密。 第一部分:錶象之下的裂痕 小說開篇,伊萊亞斯租下瞭一棟位於海邊懸崖邊,有著悠久曆史的獨立屋。屋內老舊的傢具散發著樟腦丸和海鹽混閤的氣味,壁爐裏積滿瞭多年的灰燼。他試圖用現代化的設計理念去改造它,但總感覺有一種無形的力量在抗拒他的每一次改動。 當地人對新來的外來者保持著一種疏離的禮貌。他們眼神閃爍,對任何關於鎮子曆史或近期“怪事”的詢問都避而不談。鎮上唯一的雜貨店老闆娘,瑪莎,一個看透世事的婦人,是第一個嚮伊萊亞斯透露齣冰山一角的人。她的話語總是模棱兩可,充滿瞭隱喻:“年輕人,有些地方,你越是想看清楚,就越是陷得深。” 伊萊亞斯開始注意到一些不協調的細節:夜深人靜時,遠處碼頭上傳來的規律的、如同重物拖拽的聲響;鎮中心那座廢棄已久的燈塔,燈火從未亮起,卻時常有船隻在附近迷失方嚮;最令人不安的是,鎮上的寵物——狗和貓——對某些特定的區域錶現齣極度的恐懼,它們會無故狂吠,然後瑟瑟發抖地躲藏起來。 他試圖用邏輯來解釋這一切:可能是陳舊的電路,可能是漁業衰退帶來的經濟蕭條導緻的居民壓抑,也可能是小鎮特有的地方傳說在作祟。然而,隨著他對小鎮曆史的深入挖掘,邏輯的堡壘開始動搖。 第二部分:被時間遺忘的契約 伊萊亞斯翻閱瞭鎮圖書館裏泛黃的檔案,發現埃文斯港的建立與一場十九世紀末的“集體失蹤案”緊密相關。當時,一股神秘的霧氣籠罩瞭整個海灣,數十名漁民和他們的船隻徹底消失,無一生還。官方記錄草草結案,歸咎於突發的颶風。 但伊萊亞斯發現瞭一本手抄的日記,屬於一位當時的鎮長。日記中描述的並非自然災害,而是一種“飢餓的低語”。這位鎮長記錄瞭人們在霧氣中聽到的、無法理解的吟唱,以及隨之而來的集體性的恐慌和順從。 更令人毛骨悚然的是,這些“失蹤”事件並非孤例。每隔二十年左右,埃文斯港就會發生一次小型的人口流失。流失的總是那些“不閤群”的、或者試圖揭露真相的人。 伊萊亞斯開始與鎮上少數願意交談的邊緣人物接觸,例如退休的燈塔看守人,老彼得。老彼得患有嚴重的關節炎,終日坐在搖椅上,眼神渾濁卻帶著一絲洞察力。他告訴伊萊亞斯,這座鎮子是被“選中”的。 “不是什麼惡魔,”老彼得低聲說,聲音像砂紙打磨過,“是‘契約’。我們祖先為瞭讓這片貧瘠的土地能勉強糊口,與海下的一些東西達成瞭協議。代價,是定期的‘奉獻’。” 彼得解釋說,這種“奉獻”並非傳統意義上的祭祀,而是一種緩慢的、精神層麵的吸取。海下的存在不需要鮮血,它們需要的是生者的“活力”和“記憶”。每當鎮子繁榮的假象開始衰退時,這種吸取就會加劇,導緻居民變得冷漠、麻木,思維緩慢,仿佛他們的靈魂正在被一點點抽乾,隻剩下軀殼在機械地生活。 第三部分:個體與集體的拉鋸 伊萊亞斯的到訪打破瞭這種微妙的平衡。他的活力、他的探究欲,像一把火炬照亮瞭沉積已久的黑暗,也引起瞭“契約”的注意。 他開始經曆更為強烈的幻覺。夜晚,他會看到海平麵上升起一層幽綠色的薄霧,霧中有人影在移動,他們似乎在朝他招手,邀請他加入那永恒的靜默。他的睡眠質量急劇下降,常常在清晨驚醒,發現自己正拿著工具,無意識地走嚮海邊。 他試圖嚮外界求助,但電話通訊時斷時續,網絡信號如同被海洋深處的巨石阻擋。當他鼓足勇氣,試圖駕車離開時,無論他如何選擇路綫,最終都會繞迴到埃文斯港的入口標誌。小鎮的地理邊界仿佛被一種非物理的力量扭麯瞭。 他的閤作夥伴,一個熱衷於地方曆史的獨立記者,在一次秘密的調查中失蹤瞭。留下的隻有他筆記本上潦草的最後一行字:“他們不是消失,他們是‘融閤’瞭。” 伊萊亞斯意識到,他麵對的敵人不是單個的邪惡生物,而是一種環境性的、集體性的、滲透性的存在。它通過維持一種虛假的秩序,讓居民自願地、甚至本能地去保護這個“契約”,因為反抗意味著徹底的湮滅。 小鎮的“核心”人物——鎮長、銀行傢、甚至那個雜貨店老闆娘——都是這種“契約”的維護者。他們生活在一種半夢半醒的狀態,維持著小鎮的日常運轉,確保下一輪的“奉獻”得以順利進行。 終局:是逃離,還是同化? 小說的後半部分是伊萊亞斯在極端的心理壓力下,與小鎮維護者們展開的周鏇。他必須找到解除“契約”的方法,或者,找到一條真正的齣路。 他鎖定瞭燈塔——那個自始至終都保持沉默的製高點。老彼得在生命的最後時刻,用盡力氣告訴瞭他一個關於燈塔的秘密:燈塔並非為瞭指引船隻,而是為瞭“遏製”。它內部的結構,在百年前被設計成一個臨時的屏障,以限製“海下低語”的傳播範圍。然而,隨著時間的推移,維護燈塔的儀式被遺忘,屏障正在失效。 伊萊亞斯必須進入燈塔,修復那早已腐朽的機械,重新點燃那束被遺忘的光芒。 這是一個關於人性的堅韌與代價的故事。在最終的對峙中,伊萊亞斯麵臨的不是肉體的搏鬥,而是精神的拷問:是選擇迴歸那麻木的平靜,成為“契約”的一部分,享受虛假的安寜;還是選擇燃燒自己的全部,去爭取一個微乎其微的、可能導緻自己徹底毀滅的自由。 《影蹤》 是一部氛圍極其壓抑的心理懸疑小說,它探討瞭在麵對超越人類理解的集體壓力時,個體理智的脆弱性。它不提供一個乾淨利落的結局,而是將讀者拋入一個永恒的疑問:當一個環境本身成為你的敵人時,你又該如何證明自己仍然是一個“活人”?這座海邊小鎮的霧氣,最終會散去,還是會永遠地,纏繞在讀者的心頭?